Baldwin Invitational Tournament starts Tuesday with seven schools

This year’s Baldwin’s Invitational boys’ basketball tournament will begin Tuesday, but it will be slightly different than previous years.

Instead of the usual eight teams, the 2011 BIT will only have seven teams. Savannah (Mo.) dropped out of the tournament during Christmas break. This forced Baldwin High School officials to separate the tournament into a four-team bracket and a three-team round robin for the opening two rounds.

The four teams in the bracket will be Baldwin, Kansas City Christian, Perry-Lecompton and Wellsville. The three other teams in the BIT are Anderson County, Augusta and Bonner Springs.

Wellsville and Perry-Lecompton will open the tournament at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Augusta and Anderson County will play at 6 p.m. Tuesday, with Baldwin and KC Christian to follow at 7:30 p.m. All BIT games will be played in the Baldwin Junior High School gymnasium.

On Wednesday night, Bonner Springs and Anderson County will play at 7 p.m. August and Bonner Springs will play at 6 p.m. Friday night. The losing teams of the Wellsville/Perry-Lecompton and Baldwin/KC Christian contests will play at 4:30 p.m. Friday, while the winners will play at 7:30 p.m.

The top three teams from the bracket will play the trio of round robin teams. The first-place, second-place and third-place teams from the bracket will play the school, which finished in the same number spot in the round robin. The final games on Saturday will begin at 1 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.

The school that finishes fourth in the bracket will possibly pick up a game with a team from the Spring Hill tournament, which also has seven teams.

Check the Signal’s website on Tuesday night for game scores and tournament results.